Yes, But The Peach People Are Exterminating the Blueberryites

If you want to know why I prefer to identify as Kinda Peachy, eschewing labels like white and straight and all that junk, it’s because even I’m starting to think of straight white folks as being completely and utterly fucking nuts. Yes, I know there are plenty of decent straight white liberal people, and I also know there are sickos and weirdos and freaks of every race and creed and orientation, but between the evil dipshits* running the country, the crackpot Dominionists trying to Jesusize the country, and the slew of deranged psychos that have been in the news lately (BTK serial killer, the dude who kept his dead mom in the basement in a chunk of ice, etc.), I’m just going to pack my bags for a permanent move to Kindapeachistan.

Considering the story she flags as the coup de grace, a child abuse/bestiality cult with a Texas Chainsaw Massacre level of sadism and widespread community acquiescence, I can't blame her. But I've been hearing this sort of sentiment a lot lately, and it's time to stop it. Human beings, I fear, are beasts. Not all of us, not most of us, but there does seem to be some bit of the brain that, once engaged, renders us capable and even desirous of all manner of interpersonal atrocities. That's not a white thing though. Take a jaunt through Sierra Leone's recent history and their squads of limb-hacking child soldiers, wander through the Bosnian game of forcing Kosovo's Muslim men to rape their daughters on pain of the daughter's death, stroll through World War II for...well, you get the idea.

This world's "never agains", which always happen again, prove exactly how porous the barrier between higher being and deranged id really is. They cross race, era, and nationality. It's in all of us. That's why part of the role of government, and certainly of powerful, comfortable countries like America, is to strengthen the barrier and occasionally force civilization back into the brute. And if that means jamming radios in Rwanda, strafing Janjiweed in Sudan, jailing sadist nutballs in Louisiana, or blowing up Bosnia, then so be it. Because, in the end, this is a human thing. It's not about whites or blacks or browns, no group I'm aware of has yet kept their hands out of the blood bucket for any sustained period of time. That's why humanity a whole must make a point of slapping people's hands away when they lapse and once again reach for the gore. Everyone has their relapses but, happily, we don't all have them at once. And therein, if our governments were only courageous enough to look, lies salvation.

About the Author

Ezra Klein is a staff reporter at The Washington Post. You can read his blogging here. His work has appeared in the LA Times, The Guardian, The Washington Monthly, The New Republic, Slate, and The Columbia Journalism Review. He's been a commentator on MSNBC, CNN, NPR, and more.